Oak & Rye is living proof of the value of a fresh start - not to mention fresh ingredients.

The 7-month-old restaurant in the heart of Los Gatos was the eight-year home of Restaurant James Randall, a perfectly fine and popular restaurant outfitted with white tablecloths and serving dishes like pork belly with a pomegranate gastrique and apple chip.

But owner Brenda Hammond wanted to get out of the day-to-day rigor of restaurant life, so she decided to pass it on to her children. Her son, Ross Hanson, was already familiar with the space, having been the chef at Restaurant James Randall. And the move would allow - or perhaps lure - Hammond's daughter, Dana Bunker, back to the South Bay after a decade in New York where she worked at Otto, the Manhattan pizzeria and enoteca of Mario Batali and Joe Bastianich.

Grown-ups and kids

The change has worked - and how.

The kids, along with their significant others, reopened the restaurant in October as an entirely new concept: Oak & Rye. The California-Italian restaurant and pizzeria has quickly become a Los Gatos hot spot, combining the best of big city restaurants - tight, casual service, top-flight seasonal ingredients - with a neighborhood approach.

There are two chefs in the kitchen. Hanson handles the half of the menu that encompasses snacks, small plates, salads and a pair of entrees; and Bunker's fiance, Angelo Womack, handles the pizza.

Womack and Bunker met at Roberta's, the acclaimed Brooklyn restaurant where Womack managed the pizza kitchen.

As fate would have it, Roberta's has an open kitchen. One night Bunker was sitting at the counter, when she spied Womack at work. She asked her friend, who also worked there, about the guy manning the oven, and the rest was history.

"I think he sent me a MySpace message," Bunker says with a laugh.

Bunker, Womack, Hanson and Hanson's wife, Bree, decided that Los Gatos needed a casual, fun place like Oak & Rye - a place where kids and families could go on a regular basis, but also a bustling, grown-up place where younger people could also congregate.

'No-brainer'

"It was a no-brainer, because there's nothing like that down here," says Bunker. "For Los Gatos, it's a type of service and a type of food that you weren't getting before."

They started simple, and they've kept it simple.

Flanked by a short list of wines by the glass, the menu is led by dishes that highlight fresh, seasonal produce, like the arugula salad studded with strawberries and goat cheese, or the asparagus topped with Parmigiano-Reggiano and Meyer lemon.

While the eight to 10 daily pizzas don't venture into the esoteric as often as Roberta's do, everyone can find something, from the traditional (margherita) to the nostalgic (the Coach Goni pie is topped with Hanson's childhood favorite ranch dressing) to the whimsical (Young Cheezy tips a cap to the rapper Young Jeezy with mozzarella, taleggio, Parmigiano-Reggiano and black peppercorns).

The more adventurous can opt for one of Womack's Brooklyn signatures: The Cortez, topped with tomato, chorizo, jalapeño, radish, lime pickled onion, crema and cilantro.

The cocktails are straight out of a big-city playbook, emphasizing strong and bitter flavors all the way down to the barrel-aged libations. The best one might be Oak & Rye's eponymous, Negroni-like bottled cocktail, which combines rye, Aperol and dry vermouth.

Served with a slice of orange and enough for a second pour, it's the perfect way to enjoy the warm weather on Oak & Rye's new 10-seat patio.

It all adds up to a potential classic in the making, and even the generation that loved the restaurant's predecessor gives Oak & Rye a hearty seal of approval.